Therapeutic relationships are strange. Here is someone who knows more about you than your spouse, friends and family ever will (probably a good thing!). And yet you - the client - know just the bare minimum about them. You never have them over for a meal or listen to their problems and fears. All that is expected of you is that you pay them. At times money seemed far too little reward for having to listen to me going on and on about my issues. It's a bit unfair really.
While this one-sidedness is troubling in some aspects, it's so liberating in others. No 'what do you want?' and no 'are you sure this is OK with you'?' and certainly no 'tell me what's going wrong in your life'. Its all 'let's talk about me some more'!
That's why I honestly don't understand why people fall in love with their therapist and fantasize about starting a sexual relationship with them. And it's not like I don't understand about transference, I really do. I've been there, the feelings I had for my therapist ran so very deep they frightened the hell out of me.
But however much I loved my therapist, I was never 'in love'. Why on earth would I ever want to swap my safe therapeutic relationship for the uncertainty and heartache of a 'proper' relationship?
Everyone knows relationships are hard work and I've already got a marriage that takes up a lot of my time and energy. Why look for more work when you don't have to?
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